Would Wesley Get a COVID-19 Vaccine?
Photo by Kaja Reichardt from Unsplash
Science and theology. Are they friends or foes? Depends on whom you ask. The scientific revolution was indeed replete with persons of Christian faith. Consider Boyle, Descartes, Kepler, and Leibniz. Yet, the early condemnation of Copernicus and Galileo by the church, as well as its opposition to Darwin, illustrated that reason and revelation do not always see eye to eye. In modern science, as physicalism gains more and more currency, the discrepancies between the claims of science and theology seem to be on the rise. Think causal closure vs. divine agency. Examining the heated relationship between science and religion has become its own field of inquiry. The physicist and philosophy of religion professor Ian Barbour was one of the pioneers that sought to heal the divide between science and religion. Other scientist-theologians such as John Polkinghorne, Arthur Peacocke, and Robert Russell have continued the pursuit. In his classic work Religion and Science, Barbour poses four models for understanding the possible relationship between the two fields: conflict, independence, dialogue and integration. My interdisciplinary research has always assumed the need for dialogue. The two fields need to engage in order to arrive at mutual understanding, if they are to disagree or agree. Truth should be the common language in that dialogue, as “all truth is God’s truth,” paraphrasing St. Augustine from On Christian Doctrine. So, I assume the possibility that theology and science in dialogue can find a common point of contact and hopefully complement each other’s work. Theology and science are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and neither should one exclude or replace the other.
Yet not all “truths” address the same subject, have the same methodology or goals, or are equal in significance. I realize the truths in each respective domain speak to different areas of inquiry. The primary subject matter of theology is God, while the primary subject matter of science is the universe. Knowledge of the former comes by faith and brings eternal peace. Knowledge of the latter comes by reason and brings temporal certainty. In this sense, all truths are not equal nor have equal weight and significance. Although both science and theology mutually inform my life with the truth they impart from their respective domains, my faith in God ultimately guides my soul on its sojourn from earth to heaven. Nonetheless, an axial premise held tightly is that the work of God in creation and the operational laws of the physical universe are compatible and not at odds. Further, we need to be reminded that both so-called theological and scientific knowledge are mediated through sinful and fallible humanity and hence are to be handled humbly and critically.
With that simply said, such wisdom has not always been so simply received by the everyday person in the church, where often a hermeneutic of suspicion is held when engaging the truths of science. Anecdotally, I began to notice such distrust on a practical level when I pastored in the local church. The suspicion was particularly amplified when it came to healing and faith, specifically for mental disorders. The premises and conclusions I encountered went something like this: “Since I believe in Jesus and the Bible, and I pray, then either I will not experience depression, or if I do get depressed, I do not need medication and/or therapy. God will heal me.”
I was appointed as an urban pastor to a low-income inner-city context where health insurance coverage and the median income were well below the national average. Many that attended our local “Methocostal” church were in recovery and struggling with mental health issues that were underdiagnosed and undertreated. Parishioners were suspicious of therapy and medication, thus furthering the undertreatment. As a result, some did not receive the supernatural healing that they expected. The outcomes were not due to a lack of teaching or faith in divine healing. Our church stood in a long line of Christian charismatic traditions that claim that God still heals spirit, soul, and body, as he did throughout the Scriptures. I consistently taught this truth and have observed it personally confirmed time and again. In my family and ministry over the past thirty-five years, I have witnessed countless persons healed by God of every type of ailment, from mental health issues, to cancer, to broken bones, broken marriages, to paralysis, omphalocele, and a wide variety of other conditions. Lack of faith in divine healing was not a problem.
For so-called Spirit-filled churches, divine healing is a staple doctrine rooted in the finished work of Christ in the atonement and is available to all by faith. However, at times, through lack of theological nuance, the doctrine can be proclaimed quite rigidly. “If you repent of all of your sins and have enough faith, only then you can be healed” comes close to Pelagianism. The onus of healing strictly depends on one’s righteous living and faith. Thus, in these circles, when one is not healed, it is because they “lack faith” or have “unconfessed sin.” Granted, unbelief or other unconfessed sin can separate one from God. In some instances in Scripture, though not uniformly, healing seems to be correlated to faith. “According to your faith be it unto you” is a phrase that repeatedly occurs in pericopes from the synoptics. And in one reference (Mark 6:5), Christ worked only a few miracles in Nazareth because of their lack of faith. However, the witness of Scripture is more multivalent rather than univocal regarding the nexus between faith, righteousness, and healing. Sometimes the faithful suffer sickness as Job did, and the faithless are healed like the boy with the “mute spirit” (Mark 9:14-29). The story does not say the boy had faith. Rather, his father could only claim, “I believe; help my unbelief,” and yet his son was delivered. There is a healing syllogism (paralogism) in some charismatic circles that goes something like this:
Premise 1: One of the benefits of the atonement is physical cure;
Premise 2: One accesses this benefit by faith;
Premise 3: One has faith;
Conclusion: Therefore, one is physically cured.
The argument is valid but not sound. If the premises are true, then that conclusion follows (valid argument). However, the premises are not always true, as in the second premise, which is reductive and not always the case (unsound argument). This line of reasoning goes counter to examples of faith healers who have died untimely deaths from sickness in spite of prayer and their faith. John Wimber (1934–1997) was such a case. Wimber was the founder and leader of the Vineyard movement and an influential teacher and practitioner of divine healing. Although he vehemently preached on divine healing, Wimber began to experience heart issues at the early age of forty-nine. He had a heart attack at fifty-one and was diagnosed with cancer eight years later. Two years following he had a stroke, and two years later triple bypass surgery.
Sadly, he died that same year in 1997 at only sixty-three years of age. Wimber also struggled during that same time with depression. The Vineyard founder is one of many examples of leaders who taught and practiced divine healing and yet died prematurely of illnesses in spite of prayer and faith. Faith does not always guarantee a specific healing or a cure. On a promising note, Wimber’s health issues challenged his theology and faith, which led to a different type of healing. Wimber became more open to medical treatment and also to the fact that some do not receive the healing they request (in this sense a physical cure). He documents his struggle in Living with Uncertainty: My Bout with Inoperable Cancer. His story illustrates that healing comes from God as God sees fit with resurrection as the ultimate healing and cure (for sin and death).
God’s common, prevenient grace provides resources from his storehouse for all persons and through a variety of means. As the grace of God in creation causes the sun to shine on the just and unjust, so also does the grace-filled created order of God allow for healing in creation through the internal healing mechanisms of our body, medical advancement, and the gifts of care in the health professions. Healing can occur through supernatural, natural, and even artificial means, all under the providence of God. Too frequently popular theologies of healing are exclusive, reductive, and extreme. As a result, “non-supernatural” means of healing are not attributed to the hand of God and many persons are excluded from healing.
The challenge I faced at that “Methocostal” church was to devise a scriptural, holistic mental health strategy that would also help quell the distrust in medical treatment. My book Truth Therapy eventually emerged from that endeavor. I asked, “What resources could both theology and science afford in order to assist in health and healing?” As I began to ponder that possible synergy, an immediate historical precedent came to mind. In my own Methodist tradition, the case and ministry of John Wesley stood out.
Wesley’s context within eighteenth-century England at the beginning of industrialization and urbanization was inundated with social ills, such as the slave trade, extreme class distinction, insurmountable debt, unemployment, overcrowded and unsanitary urban living conditions, debilitating poverty, malnutrition, lack of clean water, rampant alcoholism, and the list goes on. As early Methodists ministered to the souls of the masses, they encountered the physical and social struggles of the working class, including inadequate health care. Wesley seemed to take an integrative approach to the problem, incorporating the science of his day with practical theology and ministry. He coupled a stout soteriology with the latest scientific and medical research of his day. Though clearly a revivalist invested in the spiritual wellbeing of lives, he also knew the social implications of ministering the gospel and was equally invested in the overall wellbeing and living conditions of those that early Methodism touched. The movement reflected a quest for both spiritual and physical wholeness and employed whatever means were available to attain it. Wesley understood salvation as restorative and curative in nature and combined a variety of resources that were accessible to him at that time to minister to both the soul and body of early Methodists.
Wesley considered both spiritual and natural factors that cause and treat health problems. Rarely did he take a single approach, but often integrated a variety of treatments that were available, including prayer, medicine, natural remedies, and other therapies. Wesley’s integrative approach was rooted in his understanding of prevenient grace in creation. God’s prevenient grace and goodness are bestowed upon all to lead us to wholeness and holiness. For Wesley, all of nature is in a state of grace. Wesley was convinced that “there is no man that is in a state of mere nature; there is no man, unless he has quenched the Spirit, that is wholly void of the grace of God” (Sermon, “Working Out Your Own Salvation”). God can bring forth good through both “natural” and “supernatural” means.
Wesley’s England experienced a shortage of medical practitioners as well as poor quality and unaffordable health care. In an effort to provide accessible, affordable, and efficient means that would address the health conditions of early Methodists, Wesley administered a vast array of treatments to attend to the people’s needs along with the standard Methodist regimen of spiritual disciplines and means of grace found in the General Rules. He not only started societies, classes and bands but also opened free clinics in London and Bristol and pharmaceutical dispensaries in London, Bristol, and Newcastle. In 1747 Wesley published a Primitive Physic: An Easy and Natural Method of Curing Most Diseases. The Primitive Physic was a collection of natural, handed-down folk remedies (nearly 1000), combined with the latest medical treatment of his day. The work was his most widely circulated, published in twenty-three editions. In the editions after 1772, Wesley marked an asterisk by his preferred remedies and “tried” by those he found to be effective.
Wesley also dabbled in the latest scientific discoveries of the day. While Ben Franklin performed his famous experiment in 1752 to attract lightning, not much later in 1756, Wesley sought to harness electricity for healing purposes by procuring his own “electrical machine.” He made readily available and administered an early version of electrotherapy at his home and in Methodist free clinics through a portable and affordable “electrical machine,” as described in his publication, The Desideratum, or, Electricity Made Plain and Useful. A harmless, low voltage current was generated through friction by cranking the machine’s handle and was used to shock the recipient. The proximity of Franklin’s discovery and Wesley’s application may suggest both that Wesley was privy to and versed in the latest scientific advances and that his use of electricity was highly experimental and may not always have yielded any helpful results. Wesley, however, personally claimed a high rate of success treating a few dozen different ailments.
The theological point is that Wesley did not find science and religion strictly incompatible. In fact, he believed their partnership could contribute to the overall well-being of the human person. To this end, Wesley meticulously attended to every dimension of health and wholeness found in the eighteenth century. Wesley believed the sick should first consult a physician. Methodist leaders, when visiting the sick, were trained to support and supplement the care that was already provided for by medical professionals. Even so, leaders still offered counsel for prevention and treatment. For physical strength and stamina, Wesley advocated daily exercise for Methodists and specifically recommended walking and horseback riding for his preachers. If preachers could not get outside due to sickness, he encouraged them to obtain an indoor chamber horse to accomplish the same purpose. Likewise, he prescribed a healthy regimen for the diet of his preachers, including plenty of water. Proper rest and sleep were advised as well. Along with the natural means, Wesley also expected and frequently witnessed divine healing and many miracles among early Methodists (see Daniel Jennings, The Supernatural Occurrences of John Wesley).
Wesley and his leaders assumed a wide range of care for early Methodists combining spiritual, natural, and medical treatments. Indeed, early Methodists made a significant impact on eighteenth-century England, though we are easily tempted to romanticize Wesley’s evangelistic work in general and specifically in regard to health care, highlighting its successes and minimizing its glitches and even failures. Although he was assisted by an apothecary and an experienced surgeon and claimed to refer acute and complicated cases to qualified physicians, under our standards of certification, he may have technically practiced medicine without a license. However, it is worth mentioning that Anglican clergy at that time were encouraged to study basic medicine as part of their overall training. Wesley was well read in the medical texts of his day and published a few of his own volumes on health and wellness. In his journals he recorded his successes. In one entry, December 4, 1746, he claims to have treated three hundred persons in three weeks, “many who had been ill for months or years were restored to perfect health.” Some may doubt Wesley’s methods or success, yet he serves as an example of one who brought together the best of science and theology to address the maladies of his time.
In spite of Wesley’s example, I believe, in some quarters of the church, we are facing the same challenge that I did in that Methocostal church, a suspicion of the discoveries of science. The pandemic of COVID-19 has wreaked havoc globally, infecting and even killing millions. Various vaccines utilizing different technologies have been produced by our best scientific efforts. As I write this article, close to thirty percent of the population in the U.S. has been vaccinated. Former atheist and now Christian, Francis Collins, Director of the National Institute of Health, claims we will need between 70-85% vaccinated to reach herd immunity. In putting his confidence in the vaccine, Collins is not disconnecting his faith from his science. In a recent Easter article for CBS news, Collins declared, “I am a physician, a scientist, and an evangelical Christian. I believe that science and faith are not in conflict. They offer complementary perspectives, with science answering questions that start with ‘how,’ and faith often better positioned to answer why.’” Collins went on to exhort that the vaccine “is an answer to prayer.” He further exclaimed, “we are at a ‘love your neighbor’ moment, when Americans can get vaccinated to help protect others from severe illness and death.” He concluded with this comfort:
“Dear friends, on this Easter Sunday, as we celebrate our risen Lord, our best hope to end the suffering is to ensure that almost all of us have developed immunity to COVID-19. That's what these extraordinarily safe and effective vaccines can provide. They are a gift, an answer to prayer. Please do your part. Unwrap the gift, roll up your sleeve, and save lives.”
I do not think that Collins meant that the vaccine is the only or sole gift and answer to prayer. There are many limitations and uncertainties amidst the blessings that science offers. We clearly noted this year that epidemiology can be more of an art than a science, and at times even look like a game of craps. The efforts and imperfections of science and its practitioners need to be covered with prayer and faith in God’s ability. Whether it is by “natural’ or “supernatural” means, in the end, our faith and hope are in the Lord God our Healer.
Would Wesley get a COVID-19 vaccine if he were around today? I speculate that as Wesley trusted the advancements of science and the medical profession of his day, so would he today as well. I venture that he would receive the vaccine. More so, when I think of his innovative use of the electric machine, I think he might have been one of the first in line!
Dr. Peter J. Bellini is the Associate Professor of Evangelization in the Heisel Chair at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. He is a member of the Firebrand’s Editorial Board.